Hand Held vs Hand Fed

User Question
I just got two keets from the same place. Both are getting along great and love their new homes.(eatting and exploring everything) I want to train them to be hand held. I have already moved to step two. I also want to teach them to be hand feed. How would I go abot that and do I need to wait until I have trained them to be hand held?

Lisa's Answer
You're confusing two things. Hand fed is how a bird is RAISED - meaning it was fed by hand while it was a tiny chick. That is how the bird learns that humans are friendly and not scary. But hand TRAINING is about the new owner training the bird to have that same amount of trust in HER, even though the new owner wasn't around from the day the chick was born.

Of course if you hand train a bird, you can feed it from your hand. Hand training means your bird trusts you fully and will hang out on your hand, sleep on your hand, eat on your hand, you name it.

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